There seems to be something for everyone at this summer’s Olympics: There’s Simone Biles and Snoop Dogg, a pommel horse king and a rugby queen. Even Olympic veterans say this year is different.
“I’m so happy to have the fans back,” said Maddie Meyer, Getty Images’ chief sports photographer in Paris for her fifth Olympics. The Hollywood Reporter. Meyer was at the Tokyo Games, where fans and families stayed home due to pandemic restrictions. This summer is a world away from those memories. “There’s this huge vibe, all these fans in town, it’s all over the city,” she says.
Plus, for a photographer, Paris has always been a beautiful place to look at. “The sense of place is something we think about all the time in photography,” Meyer says, citing images of beach volleyball players under the Eiffel Tower. “Paris is an iconic city with such beautiful architecture and landscapes.”
The beach volleyball court at the Paris Olympics.
RvS Media/Monika Majer/Getty Images
Photographers on the field for games are tasked with capturing all the action. For novices like Arturo Holmes, the task seemed a little overwhelming at first. Holmes is a red carpet photographer for Getty whose skills have taken him to the Super Bowl, the Met Gala, the Oscars and beyond — but he says these games are “on a whole other level.”
“You have to go inside yourself to find the motivation and energy to continue to find a key moment, to navigate through all the tourists, [bouncing around] “I felt like I was in different places,” Holmes says of his initial shock. He recovered fairly quickly, though, after taking a photo of Snoop Dogg that went viral.
“It reset the battery,” he said. In a major victory, French President Emmanuel Macron shared the photo On social media, Holmes felt confirmed in his convictions: “I see that I didn’t make the wrong decision in choosing a career or dropping out of school. I was made for this. I was ready.”
Snoop Dogg during the women’s artistic gymnastics qualifying competition at the Paris Olympics, photographed by Arturo Holmes. The photo went viral and was shared by French President Emmanuel Macron on social media.
Arturo Holmes/Getty Images
Holmes is on assignment in Paris to photograph celebrities in the stands. “We’re here for the reactions,” he says. The moment with Snoop “lasted a split second,” a near-miss glance that, when you think about it, provides an exhilaration similar to that of sports itself.
Meyer finds similar satisfaction in her sports photography. “There’s a lot of intensity, a lot of emotion,” she says.
Meyer is covering aquatic sports this summer, filming swimming, artistic swimming, diving and water polo.
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